


No Place Like Home

by Pdxtrent



Series: A Series of Unfortunate Chapters [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Gen, M/M, part two of I blame my cousin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:48:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29355966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pdxtrent/pseuds/Pdxtrent
Summary: This is the third in a series of first chapters I've written over the last couple of years. Sort of a glance into my 'work in gestation' file.Some of these have been mentioned in various chapter notes, like the Stiles and Bucky story, some of them have only been mentioned to my long suffering friends. I make no guarantees these will ever progress past a first chapter, but feel free to ask questions and make comments on them. Answering questions a lot of times will shake loose my thoughts on a particular project, and cause me to go back and tinker with them.I'm calling them my 'Series of (Un)fortunate Chapters.Almost a year ago my cousin asked me to write a story. Then 2020 happened and my writing took a dive into the nothing zone. But in the pre-pandemic world I started working out the details of that story, this is not that story. This, like Iron Man, is a germ that happened and wouldn't go away.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, James "Bucky" Barnes & Stiles Stilinski
Series: A Series of Unfortunate Chapters [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2156343
Comments: 20
Kudos: 50





	No Place Like Home

Stiles blinked. 

Whatever he might have expected when he made it back to the tiny shared apartment the agency had provided during his internship and opened the door, it wasn’t this. He’d like to say the familiar looking face of the man in black and metal armor laying in a pool of blood, was a complete mystery, but it wasn’t. The man on his floor was, after all, currently the subject of a massive manhunt that stretched for 100 miles and growing, and his face was on every newscast. 'The Assassin' they were calling him at the moment, but he expected someone would coin a better nickname pretty soon. 

He was the man who’d tried to kill Captain America after all.

And it wasn't like a pale and unconscious man capable of killing him with ease bleeding out in front of him was a new experience. Because it definitely gave him a flashback to Derek Hale and a vet clinic his sophomore year.

He sighed. 

His day had already been long. The agents in charge of the interns weren’t bored or irritated when he arrived that morning, they had been tense and jumpy. Which was a new and deeply troubling set of actions, and he'd immediately switched to a tense and watchful pattern of behavior himself, because this wasn't his first or even his fifth emergency situation he'd dealt with over the last couple of years, so he recognized the signs. Something was going on. Growing up in Beacon Hills, he’d either had to develop a sixth sense for danger, or die. Honestly, he was just surprised at how bad the actual AGENTS were doing at disguising the immanent threat.

Then, mid morning the finally storm broke, and world was turned upside down. The massive headquarters of SHIELD across the Potomac from them had either been invaded or erupted in some kind of civil war, no one was saying for sure. But news cameras had caught sight of at least two Avengers involved in the fighting, and had caught video of Captain America fighting the assassin that seemed like he was trying to kill the hero.

The assassin who was currently unconscious in front on the floor in front of him. 

He looked at the guy closer, realizing some of the blood was mixed with a a generous amount of water and he could detect the slight movement of the man breathing. Well this was getting better and better. He knew what he should do. He should back up out the door and call his training officer and tell him what was going on. 

He absolutely should. 

And if he was an ordinary intern he no doubt would. But Stiles wasn’t a typical intern. He’d survived those tiny wars in Beacon Hills. The possession. The hunters. The murders. And he’d learned from those experiences. He’d watched the fighting between the assassin and Captain America. He’d seen Captain willingly drop his shield. And he’d watched the assassin jump, not fall, into the Potomac after the hero fell. 

And he’d made one of those intuitive leaps that Scott had never trusted but his father always had. Whatever had happened on that freakish giant airship, it was far more complicated than just an assassin trying to take down Captain America. There was something more going on in all of this. 

Because Stiles trusted the actions of Captain America far more than the media or the government. He always had. And Captain America had dropped his shield for this man. Stiles had to trust the trust Cap had shown, whether he understood it or not. Faith was the bedrock of loyalty. Faith was why he was so loyal to Scott McCall. 

Besides, he’d always been drawn to dangerous and mysterious men who suddenly appeared in his life.

He closed the door behind him.

Then he took a deep breath and stepped closer to the man, kneeling down to check his pulse, and discovered that the metal armor was more than just armor, it was an actual metal arm.

Of course. 

Men with metal arms weren’t that weird when your best friend was a werewolf.

He checked the other wrist and immediately caught a strong but slow pulse. Regular. Good. He hasn’t lost as much blood as it looked and his heart was stable. He glanced at the man’s still soaked clothes, and started looking for fasteners. But the bewildering array of straps and adjusters didn’t look like they were meant to come off. 

He sighed and slipped one of the terrifyingly deadly looking tactical knives out of the man’s belt and started sawing at the straps. Slowly the straps fell away and he got him down to the thin skintight shirt he wore, which he hesitated for a moment before he cut it away too. He’d loan the guy a shirt if he lived, and since he was likely responsible for Captain America being missing, the guy wasn’t going to want to walk around looking like an assassin anyway.

Even if he was actually an assassin. 

Especially if he was an assassin. 

Please let him not be an assassin.

God, he really hoped he was right to trust his gut, to trust the unexplained actions of a man he’d never met, even if he was an actual superhero. 

As he cut away the shirt he saw the array of scars and wounds that decorated the man’s body. How he was still alive was a mystery, until something caught his eye and he looked closer. Yes. The man’s flesh was knitting back together at a very familiar speed. That explained how the man had gone toe to toe with Captain America, he was a werewolf. Though the scars and the metal arm were confusing.

He sighed again. He was beginning to think he was a supernatural magnet. 

He cut the remainder of the shirt away and examined the metal arm a little closer. Knowing what it was made deciphering what he was seeing easier, but it was clearly a bizarre combination of bespoke work and advanced cybernetics. Though certain elements seemed weirdly old fashioned. It didn’t seem damaged though and he moved on. 

He only hesitated a moment before finally he half shrugged and pulled the man’s ripped and soaked trousers off too. Even if he was a werewolf trying to heal this much damage and keep his body warm dressed in clothes that were soaked and leaching needed body heat away was likely a bad idea. 

That the assassin every agent of several alphabet intelligence agencies were no doubt desperate to find was wearing Hanes was the single delightful thing out of all of this. 

He stood up and ran into Leo’s room. He hasn’t seen his hypothetical roommate since the first week of the program when he’d started sleeping with another intern named Anna. He’d moved his bags one evening a week later when Stiles was out with a few friends and left him a note. 

Stiles pulled down the blankets and got the bed ready, then went back out and carefully gathered the man’s dead weight in his arms. He may have been 147 pounds of pale skin and flailing elbows his sophomore year, but by senior year he’d put on layers of wirey muscle and was stronger than he looked, even if he couldn’t hold his own against any of the supernatural menaces they’d faced when it came to brute strength, he was more than capable of deadlifting an unconcious man. He'd had plenty of experience with unconsious werewolves.

He lay the man down on the bed, and went and grabbed the first aid kit that he’d brought with him. He’d learned to be prepared. 

He started with the major wounds, using butterfly bandages to pull the skin together to make healing easier, a trick he’d learned from Deaton. Then moving onto the smaller cuts which he checked over carefully to make sure none of them were more dangerous than they looked. Checking as he went for broken bones or any sign of internal damage, but it looked like the man had escaped relatively free of major injury.

He finished up, and hesitated then decided he’d already invaded the man’s privacy enough and elected to leave the man what little dignity his Hanes could afford him and pulled the blankets back up to cover him up. 

Stiles left the door open and went back out to the tiny living room area. He separated the weapons and gear that seemed salvageable and set them aside, then gathered the straps and remains of the shirt and threw them on the kitchen counter for the man to go through later if wanted to, then grabbed a couple of towels and started cleaning up the blood and water before it soaked into the floorboards and left stains for him to explain.

Then he started to throw together a meal, pausing occasionally to check on his patient as it cooked and hummed a Rihanna song off key. He checked on the man again before he ate, noticing some slight color returning and the man’s drying hair. The bruising was already fading. He shook his head, fucking werewolves.

He ate in silence, and then washed his dirty dishes, eyeing the plate heaping with food he’d set aside for the assassin. He’d estimated based on how much Scott or Derek ate after they’d been hurt. If it wasn’t enough he’d just have to order a pizza.

He checked on the man again, and he looked even better. More color in his skin, his hair drying out and his breathing was deeper and regular. When Stiles reached out and checked his body temperature he felt slightly warmer than normal like werewolves ran.

Stiles went back out and threw the man’s pants in the washer with some of his own clothes and ran the laundry. He picked up the man’s heavy boots, realizing that there was more to their weight than just being water logged. They were clearly steel reinforced, and though slightly damp they were clearly water repellent. 

He set the boots inside Leo’s room and then went out and started going through the case files the supervising agent had give them on Monday. He didn’t expect that there’d be a review with the massive manhunt and all, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared. 

He’d fallen deep into concentration when he heard the man start to move slightly. He got up and tried not to move quietly. Whatever else he was the man was very very dangerous. When he stepped inside Leo’s room he saw the assassin peeling back one of the bandages.

“Those should stay on for about another hour, with the rate you were healing. I know your skin knits back together before the muscle tissue underneath is done.” 

The man shifted slightly, and Stiles recognized the preparation to attack. 

“I’d really rather you didn’t kill me if it’s all the same, I didn’t kill you when I had the chance, I’m not going to do it now.” 

The man didn’t relax but he didn’t move to attack either which Stiles counted as a win. 

“I made you some food, nothing exciting, I’m not that great a cook, but I imagine you’re probably starving, I know the healing takes a lot out of you. Do you want to eat in here or are you feeling up to eating in the kitchen?” 

“где моя одежда?” The man said, then winced and shook his head, “Where are my clothes?” 

“Sorry I had to cut you out of your bondage gear and shirt. Whoever designed your dungeon wear chic didn’t design it for ease of access for the uninitiated. Your pants and socks are in the dryer. I’ll grab some clothes you can wear til they’re dry.” 

“Where am I?” 

“My cozy home away from home, where you apparently decided to try to bleed out on my floor.” Stiles said. “More generally in Washington DC. Do you remember what happened? You, Captain America? A no doubt top secret giant flying ship? You jumped into the Potomac?” 

The man’s face grew closed off and suspicious, but it was an open book after learning to read the thousand frowns of Derek Hale. 

“One of the tv stations had a helicopter nearby. They caught the fight, your currently trending number two on Twitter, ahead of Captain America but behind SHIELD, so hey, you’re famous. Though definitely not the kind of famous most people want to be. Let’s not even discuss what’s happening on Reddit.” 

The assassin looked at him and finally nodded once, and once again Stiles was reminded of Derek. He wondered if the man was a born wolf, and if they might know each other. Derek was always closed mouth at exactly how much born wolf packs mingled. 

“So what should I call you, since you’d probably prefer I didn’t go with the name Twitter picked for you?” 

“Call me Jack.” 

“Jack it is. Definitely better than the Assasin.” 

The man snorted. 

“So food?” Stiles asked.

The man nodded and slid out of the bed, stepping gingerly and winced once. Stiles gave him a once over, not just to check out how the bruises had faded, but also the guy was brutally hot, if even more lethal than Derek.

“Ummm clothes? Should I?” 

The man shrugged, and Stiles sighed inside. Of course, another exhibitionist werewolf. He turned and the man followed him out to the kitchen, glancing long at the pile of weapons on the counter and the shredded remains of his shirt and harnesses. 

He handed Jack the plate and said, “I have water or Coke.” 

The man gave him a long look. 

Stiles looked at him waiting.

The man finally said, “I guess I’ll take a Coke if it’s no trouble.” 

Stiles shrugged, “I wouldn’t have offered if it was.” and grabbed the drink from the refrigerator and handed over one of the bottles of Coke he’d brought with him from California. The good stuff bottled in Mexico and made with real sugar. Jack twisted off the cap and took a drink before he picked up his fork and dug into the mountain of food. Stiles sighed inside. He knew from experience that those caps were absolutely not twist off.

Stiles let the man eat in peace while he cleared up his mess in the living room and put away the FBI files. 

He turned around and almost screamed when he found the assassin, Jack, right behind him.

“You’re FBI?” The man said quietly. 

“An intern.” Stiles said. “The whole building is.” 

“Are you going to turn me in?” 

“Will you answer me a question honestly first?” 

The man gave him a long searching look, then nodded. 

“Is Captain America dead?” Stiles asked. The only question that really mattered to him in all of this.

“I don’t know.” The man replied. “I pulled him out of the water. I think he was alive. I had hit something coming out of the water. Or maybe it hit me. It’s confusing. I only remember pieces of how I got here.” 

“Ok.” Stiles said. “Then no, I’m not going to turn you in.” 

“Why?” Jack asked. “Why are you helping me?”

“I saw the footage of your fight with Captain America. And I noticed three things; first, you had several chances to kill him, and you didn’t. Second, he didn’t fight you. He defended himself but he didn’t attack. I saw him talk to you. He didn’t treat you like an enemy. That means something, I don’t know what, but it means something.” Stiles fell silent again.

“You said you noticed three things.” Jack said. 

Stiles gave him a long look, “The third thing was most important. When he fell, you dove in after him. That’s not a villain. That’s not a bad guy.” 

“I don’t know why I did that.” Jack replied. “I was trying to kill him. I really was. I was-“ he hesitated, “I was sent to kill him. That was my mission.” 

“I’ve seen you fight. I’ve seen other werewolves fight. If you’d meant to kill him you would have.” 

“Werewolves?” Jack said looking surprised. “You think I’m a werewolf?” 

“Aren’t you?” Stiles said. “I mean maybe you're a coyote, or werelion, or something else, but I’ve seen you heal. That’s not human normal. And your body temperature is a little higher than human normal.” 

“I’m not sure what I am anymore.” Jack said, “But I’m not a werewolf.” 

“Then why did you pick my room out of all the options? Do you remember that part?” 

Jack nodded, “The window was open.” 

“Oh.” Stiles said, rubbing his eyes. “Well that’s just embarrassing.”

“So you’re a werewolf?” The man asked, and startled a laugh out of Stiles. 

“Me? No. I’m human. Well. Mostly human. I was possessed by an evil Japanese demon for awhile though and there were some side effects, but still basically human.” 

“Side effects?” 

Stiles shrugged then took a deep breath and cupped his hand out, a small spark of flame appeared and then grew. “Little things mostly. Like that. I can tell when someone’s lying to me. Occasionally I can get a glimpse of someone's memories. Sometimes other things. Nothing super useful. I'm maybe a little stronger than I should be, or maybe that's just a result of running with werewolves and repeated mortal peril.” 

“So what are you now then, if you’re not possessed anymore?” Jack asked.

As if Stiles hadn’t wondered the same thing himself a million times. “Better.” He said simply.

And Jack gave a look that was a strange mix between haunted and hopeful.

**Author's Note:**

> This story has parts of the next two chapters written, and I think I've almost got the ending figured out. It'll almost certainly happen sooner than later, possibly in 2021 even, but no promises.  
> I love this story, because post-nogitsune Stiles and Bucky Barnes have some things they can relate on.  
> Plus, they both love those self-sacrificing hero types.


End file.
